Pastel Chums

Local Chums. And, more than that, the artists listed here are representing the passion, merit and quality of the pastel medium. Some also work in oil and other media, but I note them here in their work as pastelists.

Susan Ogilvie
lives on the remote Olympic Peninsula, an area close to my heart. Her use of color is graced by expertise and energy. She confides that her latest passion has been working with textural hand applied grounds, and she is always pushing artistic boundaries.

Jennifer Evenhus
is a Master Pastelist with the PSA, whose work makes every advantage of surprising and stunning color choices. She creates the loosest, most fascinating images I have ever seen. Eclectic subject choices also compliment her local subject matter (Beautiful Central Washington).
She's the only one of this group of chums with a blog. Way to go, Jennifer!

Sheila Evans
lives very close, in Spokane. Her work in botanical subjects graces the catalog cover (and web banner) of Dakota Art since she won the juried contest last year. She continues to earn well-deserved awards, and it is no wonder as she is a fantastic artist.

Marla Baggetta
of West Linn (by Portland), Oregon is my favorite landscapist in pastel. A self-described representationalist, she pushes the landscape motif beyond the real and imparts every bit as much expression in her art as any abstractionist ever does. A joy to view, her art is active and painterly. (Don't think: "trite" when I say painterly - her pastels are authoritative and original!)
Her hubby, Mike, is a talented abstract expressionist who works primarily in oil.

Patty Forte-Linna
of the Seattle area does interiors, which is a genre fresh with possibilities, I think. Degas was, of course, big on figures but almost always in an interiorscape. Patty is doing passionate work that always offers some original perspective. Even her outdoor cafe and veranda images have an interiorscape sensibility, which is testament to her consistency of viewpoint.

It seems like my tastes trend towards originality and freshness.

I also want to add some other very notable pastelists whose work I am nuts over, but who are from other parts of the country, and whom I hope to meet someday.

Terri Ford
I only recently became aware of Terri Ford's work. How could I miss her beautiful cover of The Pastel Journal? Her work titled Florence Night was fresh air to me, as I am looking for examples of colorist
Italian Landscapes.







Jane Lincoln
Usually, when you say that you are influenced by an artist's palette, you mean the colors they use. While I love and admire the color use of Jane Lincoln, I was really influenced by the physical palette that she puts her pastels in! See it here. Jane teaches color theory, and practices what she preaches.

M. Katherine Hurley
Like me, Katherine Hurley is much influenced by Wolf Kahn. The great, big difference is that I am influenced by Hurley, too! Her other-worldly take on realism keys on abstracted landscape compositions. Her use of color is expressive and pleasing, too. Her work influenced me to create a series of the four seasons, as she has done, that turns on bold, original and unexpected color compositions. Ever seeking original ideas, she has done some black and white pastoral scenes in pastel that make you still think of color.